Dr. Lewis Gordon Professor of Philosophy

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Dr. Lewis Gordon Professor of Philosophy

WEDNESDAY APRIL 5TH, 2017 4:00 – 5:30 P.M. LILLIS HALL ROOM 182 FREE ADMISSION 2017 UNDERGRADUATE TALK SEATING IS LIMITED THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY PRESENTS: LIGHT REFRESHMENTS PROVIDED DR. LEWIS GORDON PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FASCISM AND RACISM UO PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT A significant number of twentieth-century philosophers ranging from Susan Campbell Hall Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Ortega Y. Gasset, For more information, please contact Dr. Erin Karl Jaspers, and Jean-Paul Sartre have reflected on the relationship McKenna at [email protected] between fascism and racism. Some of their ideas draw on nineteenth century luminaries such as the Haitian philosopher and anthropologist Anténor Firmin and the German philosopher and classicist Friedrich Nietzsche. This talk will draw upon their insights for a philosophical reflection on the present global situation of rising neo-fascism, in which, as before, everyone has something to lose. About Dr. Gordon Lewis R. Gordon is Professor of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs; European Union Visiting Chair in Philosophy at Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France; and Honorary Professor at the Unit of the Humanities at Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa, where he was also Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor of Political and International Studies (2014–2015). He also is the drummer for the rock band ThreeGenerations (https://threegenerations.hearnow.com, Spotify, and other music sites). His most recent books are What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought and, with Jane Anna Gordon, Aaron Kamugisha, and Neil Roberts, Journeys in Caribbean Thought: The Paget Henry Reader, and La sud prin nord- vest: Reflecţii existenţiale afrodiasporice, trans. Ovidiu Tichindeleanu. His website is: http://lewisrgordon.com and he is on twitter at: https://twitter.com/lewgord. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Racism and Bad Faith
AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Gregory Alan Jones for the degree ofMaster ofArts in Interdisciplinary Studies in Philosophy, Philosophy and History presented on May 5, 2000. Title: Racism and Bad Faith. Redacted for privacy Abstract approved: Leilani A. Roberts Human beings are condemned to freedom, according to Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness. Every individual creates his or her own identity according to choice. Because we choose ourselves, each individual is also completely responsible for his or her actions. This responsibility causes anguish that leads human beings to avoid their freedom in bad faith. Bad faith is an attempt to deceive ourselves that we are less free than we really are. The primary condition of the racist is bad faith. In both awarelblatant and aware/covert racism, the racist in bad faith convinces himself that white people are, according to nature, superior to black people. The racist believes that stereotypes ofblack inferiority are facts. This is the justification for the oppression ofblack people. In a racist society, the bad faith belief ofwhite superiority is institutionalized as a societal norm. Sartre is wrong to believe that all human beings possess absolute freedom to choose. The racist who denies that black people face limited freedom is blaming the victim, and victim blaming is the worst form ofracist bad faith. Taking responsibility for our actions and leading an authentic life is an alternative to the bad faith ofracism. Racism and Bad Faith by Gregory Alan Jones A THESIS submitted to Oregon State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies Presented May 5, 2000 Commencement June 2000 Redacted for privacy Redacted for privacy Redacted for privacy Redacted for privacy Redacted for privacy Redacted for privacy Acknowledgment This thesis has been a long time in coming and could not have been completed without the help ofmany wonderful people.
[Show full text]
Vietnamese Existential Philosophy: a Critical Reappraisal
VIETNAMESE EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY: A CRITICAL REAPPRAISAL A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Hi ền Thu Lươ ng May, 2009 i © Copyright 2009 by Hi ền Thu Lươ ng ii ABSTRACT Title: Vietnamese Existential Philosophy: A Critical Reappraisal Lươ ng Thu Hi ền Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Temple University, 2009 Doctoral Advisory Committee Chair: Lewis R. Gordon In this study I present a new understanding of Vietnamese existentialism during the period 1954-1975, the period between the Geneva Accords and the fall of Saigon in 1975. The prevailing view within Vietnam sees Vietnamese existentialism during this period as a morally bankrupt philosophy that is a mere imitation of European versions of existentialism. I argue to the contrary that while Vietnamese existential philosophy and European existentialism share some themes, Vietnamese existentialism during this period is rooted in the particularities of Vietnamese traditional culture and social structures and in the lived experience of Vietnamese people over Vietnam’s 1000-year history of occupation and oppression by foreign forces. I also argue that Vietnamese existentialism is a profoundly moral philosophy, committed to justice in the social and political spheres. Heavily influenced by Vietnamese Buddhism, Vietnamese existential philosophy, I argue, places emphasis on the concept of a non-substantial, relational, and social self and a harmonious and constitutive relation between the self and other. The Vietnamese philosophers argue that oppressions of the mind must be liberated and that social structures that result in violence must be changed. Consistent with these ends Vietnamese existentialism proposes a multi-perspective iii ontology, a dialectical view of human thought, and a method of meditation that releases the mind to be able to understand both the nature of reality as it is and the means to live a moral, politically engaged life.
[Show full text]
Theory in Black: Teleological Suspensions in Philosophy of Culture Author(S): Lewis R
Theory in Black: Teleological Suspensions in Philosophy of Culture Author(s): Lewis R. Gordon Source: Qui Parle , Vol. 18, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2010), pp. 193-214 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/quiparle.18.2.193 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Qui Parle This content downloaded from 154.59.124.53 on Mon, 03 Dec 2018 06:57:29 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ARTICLES Theory in Black Teleological Suspensions in Philosophy of Culture lewis r. gordon My aim in this essay is to explore some challenges in the philoso- phy of culture that emerge from its often repressed but symbiotic relationship with what Enrique Dussel calls “the underside of mo- dernity.”1 Philosophy of culture and its forms in various disciplines of the human sciences have often avowed French, Germanic, and Scottish roots, through a repression or denial not only of the Afri- can, Native American, and Oceanic peoples who function as sourc- es of taxonomical anxiety but also of such sources from “within,” so to speak; Spanish inﬂ uences, for instance, with their resources from Jewish and Muslim social worlds, acquired a peripheral sta- tus.
[Show full text]
Maturity in a Human World: a Philosophical Study Thomas Meagher University of Connecticut, [email protected]
University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 7-17-2018 Maturity in a Human World: A Philosophical Study Thomas Meagher University of Connecticut, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Meagher, Thomas, "Maturity in a Human World: A Philosophical Study" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1866. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/1866 Maturity in a Human World: A Philosophical Study Thomas James Meagher, PhD University of Connecticut, 2018 This work offers a philosophical examination of human maturity. Its argument is that maturity in a human world has an infinite structure because such maturity demands taking responsibility for the world. A world is a product of constitution: human beings produce the world, which is functionally the extent of meaningfulness; but while each human being constitutes the world, each human being also enters a world already constituted. Maturity thus demands taking responsibility not only for that which is brought about through one’s own agency but also that which precedes one’s agency. The structure of the world so understood is such that it can never fully be complete. Hence, the responsibility such a world occasions is infinite rather than finite. This notion of maturity as infinite responsibility is examined through an inquiry into four questions. The first three concern maturity in the domains of reason, action, and the human sciences. Mature reason is argued to involve the development of critical responsibilities. It denotes a responsibility to expand the range of evidence evaluated and to expand the means of critical evidential assessment, which requires efforts that transcend rationality.
[Show full text]
Creolizing Political Institutions
Creolizing Political Institutions Jane Anna Gordon Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française, Vol XXV, No 2 (2017) pp 54-66. Vol XXV, No 2 (2017) ISSN 1936-6280 (print) ISSN 2155-1162 (online) DOI 10.5195/jffp.2017.825 www.jffp.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. This journal is operated by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is co-sponsored by the UniversityJournal of Pittsburgh of French and Press Franc ophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française Vol XXV, No 2 (2017) | www.jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2017.825 Creolizing Political Institutions Jane Anna Gordon UCONN-Storrs When completing the manuscript that became Creolizing Political Theory, I thought I had written what I had to say on this theme and would therefore turn to other, for me, new and distinct projects.1 As I began actually to undertake them, however, I realized that if the whole point of creolizing were that it is a living manifestation of rigorous thinking, trying to leave it behind would be a mistake. This was clear first when developing a course focused on Historical Women Political Thinkers. Using Lewis Gordon’s Introduction to Africana Philosophy as a model, I wanted to see if unique themes emerged as women wrote about and argued for their substantive inclusion in political life, as had been the case when black writers across the Euromodern world undertook philosophical reflection.2 Without the lens of creolization, I likely would have determined the selection of figures and texts quite differently.
[Show full text]
Black Existential Philosophy: Truth in Virtue of Self-Discovery James B
Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2014 Black Existential Philosophy: Truth in Virtue of Self-Discovery James B. Haile Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Haile, J. (2014). Black Existential Philosophy: Truth in Virtue of Self-Discovery (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/614 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BLACK EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY: TRUTH IN VIRTUE OF SELF‐ DISCOVERY A Dissertation Submitted to McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By James B. Haile, III May 2014 i Copyright by James B. Haile, III 2014 ii BLACK EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY: TRUTH IN VIRTUE OF SELF‐DISCOVERY By James B. Haile, III Approved June 23, 2013 _______________________________________ ________________________________________ James Swindal Michael Harrington Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Philosophy (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ______________________________________ Jerry R. Ward Professor of English Retired, Dillard University (Committee Member) _____________________________________ _____________________________________
[Show full text]
TAKING AFRICANA EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SERIOUSLY Dwayne A
TAKING AFRICANA EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION SERIOUSLY Dwayne A. Tunstall Grand Valley State University Africana existential philosophy, as a subfield of Africana philosophy, is a relatively recent phenomenon in North American, European, and African academic philosophy. Africana existential philosophy of education is an even more recent phenomenon in the field of educational theory. Given the nascent status of Africana existential philosophy in academia, many educators and philosophers of education might question whether an Africana existential philosophy of education has anything of lasting significance to contribute to educational theory. This worry is an unwarranted one, for Africana existential philosophy, as a mode of philosophical reflection, is centuries old, with roots in pre-colonial West African religious traditions.1 And, by extension, Africana existential philosophies of education can also trace their origins back to precolonial West African religious traditions. However, this essay will not be an exercise in tracing the origins of Africana existential philosophies of education back to precolonial West African religious traditions, since scholars such as Paget Henry, Clevis Headley, and Stephen Nathan Haymes have already contributed much to that project.2 Even though this essay does not trace the origins of Africana existential philosophies of education back to precolonial West African religious traditions, I think I should mention a couple of the similarities between these precolonial religious traditions and African
[Show full text]
A Study in the Philosophy of Simone De Beauvoir A
i ENGENDERING SUBJECTIVITY: A STUDY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Jina M. Fast December 2014 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Lewis Gordon, Chair, Temple University, Philosophy Department Dr. Joseph Margolis, Temple University, Philosophy Department Dr. Miriam Solomon, Temple University, Philosophy Department Dr. Sally Scholz, External Member, Villanova University, Philosophy Department ii ABSTRACT In this study I advance the thesis that Simone de Beauvoir’s account of the development of subjectivity is based in a consideration of the Hegelian description of the development of subjectivity in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Like Hegel, Beauvoir argues that an aspect of the development of subjectivity is the ability to discover oneself as related to the collective world. Additionally, she shows through her various works that individual identity and freedom are conditioned by the possibility for intersubjective recognition, and development of a project within an ambiguous relationship between the self, others, and the shared social world. Nevertheless, throughout history this foundation for the possibility of freedom has often been lacking and more so for some groups than others, which points us to an important difference in focus in Hegel and Beauvoir’s work. For one, the subject in the idealized Hegelian account comes to recognize its power and freedom as it progresses in its connections and influence within the world. But, for those who have historically lacked options (women, those who happen to be black, the poor, etc.) transcendence in terms of the actualization of one’s identity and recognized participation in the collective is at best often co-opted or concealed and at worst impossible.
[Show full text]
Afro Pessimism
AFRO PESSIMISM “SLAVERY IS THE THRESHOLD OF THE POLITICAL WORLD, ABOLITION THE INTERMINABLE RADICALIZATION OF EVERY RADICAL MOVEMENT.” AFRO- PESSIMISM AN INTRODUCTION racked & dispatched designed. printed. bound. minneapolis, january 2017 no copyright authorization not sought or granted in the production of this edition. any part of this book may be reproduced, stored virtually, or transmitted by any means, electronic, physical, supernatural, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. this reader is not intended for profit. free pdf | connect: rackedanddispatched.noblogs.org racked&[email protected] set in AVANT-GARDE and Baskerville 91 14 20 66 6 CONTENTS Introduction 7 I. Blacks and the Master/Slave Relation | 2015 15 FRANK B. WILDERSON, III II. The Burdened Individuality of Freedom | 1997 31 SAIDIYA HARTMAN III. The Avant-Garde of White Supremacy | 2002 49 STEVE MARTINOT & JARED SEXTON IV. The Prison Slave as Hegemony’s (Silent) 67 Scandal | 2003 FRANK B. WILDERSON, III V. The Belly of the World: A Note on Black 80 Women’s Labors | 2016 SAIDIYA HARTMAN VI. Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American 91 Grammar Book | 1987 HORTENSE J. SPILLERS VII. The Vengeance of Vertigo: Aphasia and Abjection 123 in the Political Trials of Black Insurgents | 2011 FRANK B. WILDERSON, III VIII. The Vel of Slavery: Tracking the Figure of 148 the Unsovereign | 2014 JARED SEXTON References 170 Further Reading 178 INTRODUCTION his reader is intended to be an introduction to the theory Tcalled Afro-pessimism. Collected in this volume are articles spanning three decades of thought, with topics ranging from police violence, the labor of Black women, and the slave’s transformation following emancipation, to the struggles of the Black Liberation Army and elements of anti-Blackness in Indigenous struggles for sovereignty.
[Show full text]
Euromodernity's Undertone: on Reconceptualizing Political Speech Derefe Chevannes University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected]
University of Connecticut Masthead Logo OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 4-23-2019 Euromodernity's Undertone: On Reconceptualizing Political Speech Derefe Chevannes University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Chevannes, Derefe, "Euromodernity's Undertone: On Reconceptualizing Political Speech" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations. 2100. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/2100 Euromodernity’s Undertone: On Reconceptualizing Political Speech Derefe Kimarley Chevannes, PhD University of Connecticut, 2019 Abstract This dissertation contends speech is indispensable to politics. It begins with Aristotle, whose conception of political speech grounds our modern understanding. I argue the Aristotelian position is colonizing insofar as it essentializes speech as sound. The consequence is that speech becomes phonocentric, privileging a particular mode of communication. This raises the issue of Deaf subjects who engage politics in non-phonocentric ways. That is, their speech is seen in what I contend is a visual vernacular. Subsequently, I turn to the issue of race. If Deaf subjects raise questions about what it means to speak, Black subjects, who speak audibly and are still unheard, raise a correspondent question: What does it mean to be heard? Within Euromodernity, I contend political speech becomes essentialized and racialized. Here, particular human beings (whites) are deemed as deserving of being heard, while others (Blacks) are silenced and thus, rendered speechless. In response to these conditions, I argue Black and Deaf subjects do speak and their speech challenges existing hegemonic, colonized forms. Black and Deaf political speech allow for the creation of Black and Deaf lifeworlds, an articulation of their own ways of existing in the social world.
[Show full text]
Afro-Pessimism, Black Life, and Classical Hip Hop As Counter-Performance Kevin Eubanks
Eubanks: After Blackness, Then Blackness: Afro-Pessimism, Black Life, and JOURNAL OF HIP HOP STUDIES . After Blackness, Then Blackness: Afro-Pessimism, Black Life, and Classical Hip Hop as Counter-Performance Kevin Eubanks Just as Frank Wilderson cites the propensity of the black performance to obscure and evade black life and reality and calls for a more “direct reflection” on the “ghosts and grammar” that haunt the enactment of black subjectivity, Jared Sexton’s critique of Fred Moten’s optimism lies in the latter’s emphasis on the “fugitive ontology” of blackness, an ontology that has the black always on the run from the structures that govern a priori the anti-black world into which it would pretend to escape. Consequently, the challenge of afro-pessimism is to imagine, amidst the afro-pessimist negation, a black movement that is not or other than performative, something more than a “narrative strategy hoping to slip the noose of a life shaped by slavery,” but instead a more visceral apprehension of and engagement with the structural violence against blackness as “a grammar of emergence and being.” The question I would like to answer here is whether in Hip Hop one can discern just such a movement and apprehension. Black life is not lived in the world that the world lives in […]. That’s the whole point of the enterprise at some level. It is all about the implications of this agreed-upon point where arguments (should) begin, but they cannot (yet) proceed. — Jared Sexton, “The Social Life of Social Death” (2011) I know the price of life.
[Show full text]
A Philosophical Account of Africana Studies an Interview with Lewis Gordon
A Philosophical Account of Africana Studies An Interview with Lewis Gordon Linda Martín Alcoff Lewis Gordon received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University in 1993, then taught in the philosophy department at Purdue until 1996. The following year, he moved to Brown University, where he is now chair of the Department of Africana Studies. He has had an equally signiﬁcant and original impact in both domains. In Africana studies, Gordon has pursued an expansive concept of black identity that includes not only the United States and Canada, but Latin America and the multilingual Caribbean as well. In philosophy, he has resuscitated the tradition of existentialism, which was previously on the wane after the onslaught of antihumanism, poststructuralism, and other attacks on the theory of subjectivity that is the cornerstone of existential- ism. For Gordon, existentialism is a vital tool in the project of developing a new humanities and new social theory, ones that can interrogate their Eurocentrism and base themselves more fully on the experiences of diverse peoples. Moreover, he argues that existentialism is critical for the develop- ment of African-American thought as well as for an analysis of racism in everyday life. He has developed these arguments in four books, Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (1995), Fanon and the Crisis of European Man (1995), Her Majesty’s Other Children (1997), and Existentia Africana (2000). Gordon has thus led a movement toward a reconﬁgured existential phenomenology among black philosophers; in addition to the books just listed, he has edited four anthologies that collect the developing body of work in this new genre of black existentialism.
[Show full text]